The Big Muff is probably one of the most
sought after, and heavily replicated pedals on the planet. Even though
it is still made by the original manufacturer, it's long and varied
history has made it's way into many other pedal manufacturers' fold.
When Catalinbread set out to create the Manx Loaghtan fuzz, their goal
wasn't to brush off an obscure build to recreate. Rather than looking
back over that pedals heritage, they wanted to try and push it forward.
One of the more common traits among fuzzes of that ilk is the tone
control. However, they felt that such a tone stack was rather limiting.
Often you would follow the sweep looking for the one spot that sounded
right. The one spot where it didn't sound too boomy or constricted and
thin. Where the pedal finally finds its harmony. Catalinbread wanted it
to not be a compromise between too bright and too bassy, but also be
capable of doing either or both with a nice mid range scoop in order to
sound HEAVY for chunky chords. So rather than using the traditional tone
control they incorporated the Baxandall.

About the Baxandall
tone control: Crank both treble and bass and you get a classic scooped
midrange. Back both off, while turning up the volume knob and your
midrange content increases. Park the treble and roll back the bass and
the midrange scoop frequency shifts downward so you have complete
control over which frequencies you are cutting. Roll the bass below noon
and you start to add a bump to your midrange which is great for running
into a hot amp. This tone control style is capable of numerous sounds,
making the Manx Loaghtan one of the most versatile pedals of this style.

However, Catalinbread had more in mind than just including a
more effective tone control. They wanted sustain that wouldn't wolf out
with the neck pickup. Catalinbread wanted a flute like sing with nice
upper harmonics ringing through. They wanted to be able to use this into
a hot amp if you wish to, so when you lower the bass nice mid range
content can cut through. They also wanted the SUSTAIN range to be usable
all the way throughout the dial. Some of the tones Catalinbread
referenced range from Gilmour to Black Keys to J Mascis to Dead Meadow
to Thurston Moore to Adrian Belew.

The Manx Loaghtan Fuzz...
Chunky, flutey singing sustain. Powerful Baxandall tone controls offer
independent control over the bass and treble frequencies so that there
is never a balancing act compromise!

Handbuilt in beautiful Portland, Oregon by a mostly caffeine-fueled staff of musicians, gear heads, and artists.

What do you call an effect that isn’t quite a Bit
Crusher, or an Octave, or a Harmonizer, or a Ring Modulator, or a Lo-Fi
dirt box/fuzz – but a bit of a blend of each?

Yeah – we don’t know either, so we came up with “Harmonic Pixelator”.

The Heliotrope is an "analog bit crusher" of
sorts. Since there is no analog to digital conversion happening it isn't
a true bit crusher, hence the name "Harmonic Pixelator". It works with
guitar, bass, keyboards, etc. We designed the pedal to be intuitive and
easy to use even though what it is capable of sonically is actually
quite complex and varied. The Heliotrope can be powered from a 9v-18v
adapter or a 9v battery. At 18v you’ll notice more output volume and
headroom is available.

The Dirty Little Secret has earned itself a well-deserved reputation for
replicating the sound and feel of a classic era Marshall amplifier,
supplying one of the most iconic guitar sounds in music. When the JFETs
used as the base for the Dirty Little Secret were discontinued, and as
our stock of them began to dwindle we knew we had to find ones still
being manufactured. However, rather than simply re-voicing around these
new JFETs, we decided to push the envelope and provide an amazingly
robust feature-set, from ever evolving listening and circuit skills, and
pure power of intention. This isn't just 'a' Marshall in a box, it's
the most versatile and dynamic Marshall-style overdrive out there!

Introducing the Antichthon from Catalinbread Effects. The Antichthon is a
fuzz/tremolo that delivers otherworldly oscillation that is manipulated
by adjusting your guitar’s volume control.As you change the level of your input signal, the Atichthon’s parameters also change….. and in a way that no other pedal reacts.

The Octapussy is, essentially, an octave-up fuzz in the tradition of the
Octavia. But it’s not a clone of that circuit! Nope, it’s an original
circuit utilizing three silicon transistors and two diodes that takes
the tradition to the next level! The preamp section is custom voiced to
give you an extremely dynamic playing response. You’ll get those famous
high-octave lead tones up high on the guitar neck but you’ll also get an
amazing array of fuzz tones anywhere else on the neck - just by how you
play it and how your guitar’s volume, tone and pickup selector is set.

The 1961 Fender Twin Amp... The Vibrato in this amp was actually more
than Tremolo. I am not sure exactly what the effect should be called.
Vibrato? Tremolo? Modulated dual filter? Phasor? Leo called it “vibrato”
which isn’t technically correct. It is an amazing sound though!! Truly
the “sinewave” Brownface tremolo sound, folks are looking for. We used
this as the starting point adding a lot more range of speeds and much
more depth.

Like most other Catalinbread pedals, the Pareidolia
was designed for both 9v and 18v operation, the latter giving a more
pronounced up-front sound to the effect. We worked very hard tuning this
pedal, and the result is a complex modulation that is quite literally a
mesmerizing effect, where you stop thinking and just start playing. It
frees your mind to be creative. It is hypnotic, yet unlike over the top
modulation effects the Pareidolia doesn't pwn your sound, allowing your
playing to shine through. And unlike other modulation pedals it is less
picky in its placement with other pedals. Whether the Pareidolia is
placed pre-dirt, post-dirt, or sandwiched between, this pedal still
sounds great.

We're convinced that once you turn on the Harmonic
Mesmerizer, you'll have a tough time turning it off. Here's a fantastic
clip to wet your whistle, showing the Pareidolia's range both clean, and
through a cranked amp.

Your guitar signal is split into two. One feeding a
gain stage filtered to pass highs and the other filtered to pass lows.
These stages are tuned to share some common frequencies in the middle so
when it modulates they have a nice swirly soup in the midrange. The
amplitude (via bias) of each stage is modulated by a sinewave out of
phase with the other. The result of this is as one stage’s volume is
going down the other is going up. The fact that it is modulated by bias
means the phase of each stage is modulated ever so slightly. The
interaction of this slight phase shift on the shared midrange
frequencies results in some interesting subtle frequency canceling while
the amplitude goes up and down.

So what you hear is quite literally mesmerizing. Your
brain has multiple points of modulation to listen for, phase shift,
amplitude, and frequency band. When you play a held out chord your brain
hears things that is not actually happening, such as the LFO sometimes
seems to be speeding up and slowing down. In reality the LFO is staying
the same speed, but because the sound is so complex your mind is
attempting to make sense of all the variables. I liken it to seeing
faces in clouds, in wood grain, or on Mars – thus the name Pareidolia.

The Catalinbread Callisto is a
Chorus/Vibrato pedal, which employs an MN3007 Bucket Brigade chip at its
core. It's interface is simple, intuitive, and provides a multitude of
sounds ranging from subtle and shimmer to rotary speaker-like to
off-kilter warping/warble sounds. A twist of the DENSITY knob
continuously adjusts the delay line time delivering classic chorus
sounds from fat & warm to airy & subtle. MIX knob smoothly dials
everything from lush chorusing, to true pitch vibrato, to sea sickening
warble, and has the ability to run clean dry to completely wet. The
sweep depth of the chorusing is controlled by the WIDTH control. The
RATE range can go from slow and syrupy to almost ring-mod intensity.

The
Callisto's small size and elegant, versatile feature set make it a
great addition to any pedalboard. The Callisto is powered using a 9v
negative tip DC power supply or 9V battery, is true bypass, and
integrates various highest quality components to achieve the best tonal
response possible. Catalinbread utilizes an old school MN3007 bucket
brigade chip, just like early chorus pedals, and uses an audiophile Burr
Brown OPA2134 chip in the audio path to give the Callisto a natural
feel and dynamic playability.

Handbuilt in beautiful Portland, Oregon by a mostly caffeine-fueled staff of musicians, gear heads, and artists.

The Catalinbread Belle Epoch Tape Echo,
has tape echo sounds so authentic you’d swear there was tape inside the
pedal! Inspired by the Maestro Echoplex, EP-3 model, perhaps the most
famous tape delay ever, the Belle Epoch features everything great about
the EP-3 in a small, maintenance free pedal format. Catalinbread felt
that a “tape echo” pedal was much more than just a standard digital
delay with some “filtering” on the repeats. There are a lot of subtle
and not-so-subtle traits of the Echoplex that needed to be implemented
in order to be authentic. The preamp, the self-oscillation character,
the ability to play the pedal as an instrument unto itself, the ability
to control the “record level” of the signal hitting “tape”, the wow and
flutter, the way the repeats decay, the way the circuit interfaces with
the amp and other pedals - all these things were important to get right.

The
Catalinbread Belle Epoch was designed to be run in front of your amp in
the same way the Echoplex was designed to be run in front of your amp.
They share almost identical input and output circuit topologies,
including the passive unbuffered mixer circuit of the EP-3. However,
Catalinbread tuned it to have a lower output impedance than the EP-3 to
not load down the output as much while still retaining the open
non-buffered output interface. A buffer does just what the name implies -
it isolates one circuit from the next and can create a “disconnected”
feeling that is subtle but a player who relies on touch-sensitive
dynamics in his rig will appreciate the difference of not having the
buffer. Having said that, the Belle Epoch will perform great in almost
any pedal stacking situation. But for the most authentic Echoplex-like
experience, its recommend that you run it before any foundation
overdrive type pedals and after fuzzes, treble boosters, and the like.
For the most awesome experience, try playing it right in line before
your cranked up tube amp.

Handbuilt in beautiful Portland, Oregon by a mostly caffeine-fueled staff of musicians, gear heads, and artists.

Plate reverb is an artificial effect that utilizes a sheet of
metal that vibrates sympathetically with a soundwave that hits it. The
basic architecture of a plate reverb unit has a large, thin sheet of
metal (nearly 6.5’x3’ in the case of the legendary EMT140) that has a
transducer at one corner driving the sheet in much the same way as a
speaker would, on the other end a pickup to capture the vibrations of
the metal sheet, and a mechanical dampener that reduces the plate
vibration. The reverb sonically stays out of the way of the dry path due
to the minimal initial reflections and a full warm reverb that tapers
smoothly fades out into a tail. In the studio, plate reverbs were
routinely employed due to the way they added a natural ambience without
interfering with the original program material… That and the fact that
even though they were nearly 7 feet long and 4 feet tall, plate reverb
units were a heck of a lot smaller than a giant room or hall when
ambience was needed on recordings.

Plate reverb units were used on just about every instrument including
vocals. Though they sound particularly great with electric guitar due
to the minimal early reflections which keeps plate reverbs from sounding
too “effecty” and obvious. The warm quality of the full-bodied reverb
naturally tapering off compliments perfectly the voice and range of the
guitar. The problem has been until now, the giant size made plate reverb
units prohibitive to use on the road. We are proud to brag that the
Talisman is 479.99% smaller than the leading plate reverb!

We always felt something was amiss with so-called “plate reverb”
settings on many products in the marketplace. Lets be honest, they often
simply sounded thin, metallic and crappy. It was almost as if the
programmers said while tapping on a cookiesheet, “yeah I know what a
metal sheet sounds like, I’ll program it to sound that way!” Our goal
was to capture all the goodness of classic studio plate reverb by
actually experiencing a maintained EMT140 at Jackpot! Studios.

Because plate reverb was born in the studio, on the Talisman we
included studio style sidechain effects that are routinely paired with
plates. These controls are PRE DELAY, which delays the reverb by about
100mS. And HIGH PASS, which rolls off the low frequencies of the reverb.
Both of these controls allow you to tune the reverb, in order to keep
it from interfering with the dry signal.

The Catalinbread Echorec has been in the
making for several years! This multi-tap delay is based around the
legendary Binson Echorec, an arcane tube echo which incorporated 4
playback heads and a spinning magnetic drum as its recording medium. The
Binson is probably most famously known for Pink Floyd's use of the
unit, and has long captivated musicians for both its rhythmic and
ambient characteristics.

The Catalinbread Echorec has 12 programs
which allow for all combinations of the 4 delay heads (something the
original was never capable of.) The original also has a fixed speed, and
thus a fixed delay time, while the Catalinbread Echorec can go from
40ms-1000ms. The repeats give you the ability for a single repeat or can
go into spaceship feedback. The tone control is very useful, able to be
tonally flat or dark and resonant on one side or bright and bubbly on
the other. The mix allows for 100% wet or dry signal. Inside the pedal
you have the ability to run in true-bypass or trails mode, as well as a
trimmer for gain and modulation.

Not only is the Catalinbread
Echorec extremely versatile in its controls, the audio path was designed
to be big, lush, and even more dynamic in its feel than the original.
Catalinbread has always designed pedals with this thought in mind, and
continue to make effects that are extensions of your instrument rather
than mere boxes at your feet.

Handbuilt in beautiful Portland, Oregon by a mostly caffeine-fueled staff of musicians, gear heads, and artists.